We Come Back Every Time
by Z's Athena
Summary: Despite having outgrown her former childish self, there were still times when Sakura couldn't help reverting back to her old ways—especially when it involved a shirtless Sasuke. /SasuSaku. One-shot./


**Author's Notes:** So I was studying for my board exam—my freaking _board exam_ , you guys—and I couldn't help getting distracted by the SasuSaku feels that are always just floating around in my head. Talk about escape behaviors. T_T And even though I was nowhere near my laptop and only had my pencil and my notebook earlier, I actually handwrote everything just to get this out of my system. I could have been distracted by something SSMonth-related, because heaven knows I only have less than a third of the prompts written, but my brain just went, "Nope. Not gonna happen. Write about something random instead." So here I am. OTL Prayers for my soul, please? Also, this was inspired by a shirtless Sasuke I doodled on my textbook while "studying". Hehehe. Sorry for the long intro. xD

Set post-war, before Sasuke leaves for his journey of redemption

 **Disclaimer:** _Naruto_ and all related characters rightfully belong to Masashi Kishimoto.

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 **We Come Back Every Time**

 _By Z's Athena_

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Sakura had long since outgrown her former childish self and matured into the strong, brilliant, well-respected woman she was now. However, there were still times when she couldn't help letting remnants of her fangirl days seep through and ended up acting like the lovestruck pre-teen that she once was.

Such instances usually involved a shirtless Sasuke training under the blistering Konoha heat, sweat rolling down the contours of his chiseled chest and abs causing his body to glisten rather deliciously—much like the situation she happily found herself in that particular morning.

One of the differences, she surmised, between her fangirling then and her fangirling now was that _now_ she could shamelessly admit—at least to herself—that she felt insanely hot and bothered just looking at him in his current mouth-watering state, unlike back in the day when she couldn't even bring herself to think of him that way. The sight presented to her right before her very eyes sent her mind to places that would have caused her twelve-year-old self to blush in innocent mortification.

She continued to ogle her teammate under the guise of overseeing his return to pre-morbid function as his medic (which was true—but that didn't mean she couldn't allow herself to enjoy the perks of her job) while he moved through a series of punches and kicks and other taijutsu maneuvers aimed at an imaginary enemy, training himself in fighting with only one upper extremity.

He was doing quite good and his recovery was impressive—but then again, it was Sasuke so _of course_ he could still prove to be an excellent ninja with only his non-dominant arm, and he wasn't even using the Sharingan or any of his brand new level-ups yet!

In the back of her mind, Sakura had the decency to wonder about his state of undress, as she definitely didn't expect Sasuke to be the type to go about flaunting (well, not really flaunting; more like… being infuriatingly blasé about it) his godlike physique; but she supposed that since it was just the two of them at the training grounds that morning and that it _was_ also quite hot, she could give him the benefit of the doubt. Though, if she didn't know any better, she would have assumed that he was doing it for her sake. (She giddily hoped he was.)

A few minutes later, Sasuke finally came to a stop and relaxed his stance, breathing heavily and wiping away the beads of sweat dripping down his forehead, before making his way over to where she sat underneath the shade of a large tree.

She beamed up at him when he was near enough, pulling herself out from her less-than-pure imagination, and offered him a towel and a bottle of water which he silently accepted with a nod of thanks.

He slung the towel over his shoulder and took big gulps of the cool beverage, immediately downing all of the contents in one go. When he was done, he let out a satisfied sigh and turned towards her with an unreadable expression.

"You were staring at me again," he stated casually.

She looked taken aback for a moment before she grinned at him sheepishly.

"You noticed, huh."

She chuckled self-consciously at having been caught—though in actuality, it didn't really bother her that much—but then her expression suddenly turned sly as she said, "You don't mind, do you?"

"Tch," he replied with a scowl as he averted his gaze and brought the bottle of water back to his lips even though it was already empty.

If it weren't for the shade, she would have seen the most microscopic of blushes gracing his cheeks, but she didn't need that to tease him further after she heard his quiet follow-up of "Not really" when she thought he wasn't going to say anything more.

"You secretly like it when I stare like that, don't you?" From his peripheral vision, he could see the smirk stretching across her lips.

She then stood up without waiting for his response, patted the grass off her behind, and stepped closer to invade his personal bubble—close enough to feel the warmth radiating off his body and to notice his subtle yet sudden intake of breath.

He sharply turned back to her with a glare. "I never said that," he firmly denied.

This merely caused her to laugh, enjoying the rare feeling of making _the_ Uchiha Sasuke flustered. He growled when she patted his shoulder good-naturedly as her laughter died down and she moved away to saunter toward the middle of the clearing.

"My turn," she simply declared as she donned her leather gloves, getting ready to release some pent-up sexual frustration and shatter the earth with her awesome chakra punches.

Sasuke faced her now and moved to sit and observe her under the shade of another tree situated a little farther back to avoid being hit by the debris that would no doubt go flying around everywhere as soon as she was done with her warm-up.

He allowed himself to relax his posture and leaned back, taking in the sight before him—the delicate curves of her body: the swell of her breasts and the flare of her hips; the mesmerizing way her firm muscles went taut as she stretched and unknowingly gave him a rather tempting showcase of her flexibility; the determined look on her features, so different from and yet so similar with the dazed face she was watching him with earlier.

She was no longer focused on him, that much he could tell when she didn't bother to spare him a glance anymore as she readied her stance, fully concentrating on her form and movements now.

It was all well and good for him, though. Little did she know: now, it was _his_ turn to stare and get lost in his thoughts of her.

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 **A/N:** Fangirl and fangirling are real words in my vocabulary. Deal with it. On another note, my last three fics' titles (including this one) are all from Taylor Swift songs. Has anyone else noticed that? :)


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